30 Amazing New York Curiosities | With Images

"The Capital of the World", "the city of skyscrapers", "the Big Apple", "the city that never sleeps" ..., there are many nicknames that New York receives and they all do, in one way or another, reference to the grandeur and singularity of the city. Who has not dreamed of visiting New York once? Maybe you have already done it and you are willing to return or plan to do it in the future, in any case, here you have 30 amazing New York Curios that will surely interest you.

New York is the most populous city in the United States. Located on the East Coast it is since the late nineteenth century one of the most important centers around the world for trade and finance, but it is much more than that. The city of New York is one of the cities with the most artistic and cultural influence on the planet. Its more than 8.5 million inhabitants are distributed in 5 districts or counties: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island.

30 Amazing New York Curiosities

1. The first historical mention of the area in which the city of New York was later established was made by the European discoverer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. At that time in the region lived about 5,000 indigenous Lenape tribe.

2. Manhattan was bought by the Dutch to the natives in 1626 for what today would be about $ 1,000, in what has been called "the best real estate business in history." There they established a Dutch settlement for the fur trade on Governors Island and founded New Amsterdam. The name comes from the Lenape language and means "island of many hills", however today it is mostly flat since it was flattened to facilitate urban development.

3. In 1664 the British conquered the city from the Dutch and changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York in honor of the Duke of York and Albany, brother of King Charles II and who would eventually become King James II.

4. In the year 1789 the city of New York became the first capital of the United States, but only maintained the capital for a year. George Washington was sworn in as president on the balcony of the Federal Hall.

5. One of the curiosities of New York is that, strange as it may seem, it is not the capital of the state. The capital is the city of Albany.

6. As we have mentioned, the city is divided into 5 municipal districts or counties. Four of the five are on islands. Manhattan and Staten Island have their own islands, Queens and Brooklyn are at the western end of Long Island and The Bronx is the only one located on the continent.

7. Another of the curiosities of New York It is one of the oldest houses in the city. It is located in Brooklyn and is known as the " Wyckoff Farm " It was built in the 1640s and the Wyckoff family lived there until 1901. It is now a museum dedicated to the Dutch legacy of the city.

8. No one feels strange in New York since 800 languages ​​are spoken in the city. It is considered the city with the greatest linguistic diversity in the world, since 40% of households speak a language other than English. It is the city in which more Chinese live outside Asia or more Jews outside of Israel.

9. The New York area was so rich in oysters that its shells were used to pave Pearl Street, where there was once a native dump of oyster shells, or in the masonry of the Church of the Trinity.

10. The famous Statue of Liberty , symbol of the city, was given by France to the USA. in 1886. It arrived fragmented in 350 pieces in 214 boxes.

11. Another of the curiosities of New York It is the Public Library of the city. It contains more than 50 million books and is the third largest in the world. We have seen it in many films and especially "The Day After Tomorrow" in which the protagonists take refuge in the institution.

12. One of the most iconic places in the city is Times Square. It has not always been called that, it used to be the Plaza de Longacre, but when in 1904 the New York Times moved there, it changed its name. It is also known as "The crossroads of the world", "The center of the universe", "The heart of the Great White Way" and the "Heart of the world". Every year, about 50 million people visit it.

13. Surely you have seen images of the circulatory chaos that often occurs in the city and in which the beeps of the car horns are heard, well, in New York it is forbidden to play the horn except in cases of emergency .

14. Another of the curiosities of New York It is its most emblematic building, the Empire State Building. It was the highest in the world between 1931 and 1972. It has 102 floors and a height including its antenna of 443 meters. In addition, it has its own zip code.

15. Saint Paul Church is the oldest church in the city. It has been standing since 1764 and despite being in front of the eastern part of the World Trade Center It was not affected after the fall of the Towers on September 11, 2001 and it is said that it was saved by a miraculous sycamore tree that was in the northwest corner of the property that was hit by debris. In the chapel many of the injured were treated and served as a resting place for 8 months for those who worked at Ground Zero. In its interior many memories of that terrible event are conserved.

16. In the place where the World Trade Center once stood, the One World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower, is the main building for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. It is 451 meters high and is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and currently the sixth tallest on the planet.

17. If you have thought to live in Manhattan you have to take into account that the rent of the house is absolutely prohibitive. For a one-bedroom apartment you will be asked for more than $ 3,000 per month.

18. In New York not only the rent is exorbitant, but many other things are. If you want to have a business like a "hot dog cart" or sale of another street food in the city, you will pay between 150,000 and 300,000 dollars per year for the license.

19. The first pizzeria in the US It was opened in New York by an Italian emigrant named Gennaro Lombardi in 1895.

20. In New York there are more than 2,000 bridges and tunnels. The most famous is the Brooklyn Bridge built between 1870 and 1883. It is the first suspension bridge with steel cables in the country.

21. One of the curiosities of New York And New Yorkers use acronyms to refer to different places in the city. Here are a few: NoHo is North Houston Street, SoHo is South Houston Street, NoLiTa is North Little Italy, TriBeCa designates the neighborhood in Lower Manhattan included in the Tri angle Be low AC nal Street "(Triangle under Canal Street), LES is the Lowe East Side, FIDI is the Financial District and so many more.

22. The New York subway, opened in 1904, is the largest public transportation system in the world. Each day it is used by about 6 million people and has 472 stations.

23. In Supercurioso we already talked about one of the Ghost or abandoned stations of the metro network from the city. There are several in New York and on certain dates it is possible to visit them.

24. A curiosity in New York that is very important to many: all its subway stations have wi-fi!

25. Not the entire city is built with skyscrapers. One of the curiosities of New York is that only these buildings can be erected in Midtown and the lower part of Manhattan. This fact is due to the fact that it is the only area where there is solid rock in the subsoil in which to settle the buildings. The others have, in general, a soil too soft to support the huge buildings.

26. The largest urban zoo in the US is located in the Bronx. It has more than 500 species and has about 4,000 animals.

27. One of the most famous streets is Wall Street. It received the name by a wall of little more than 3'5 meters of height that built in the XVII century the inhabitants of New Amsterdam to protect themselves of the pirate attacks.

28. Oddly enough, in New York it rains more than in London. One of the most surprising sights in New York!

29. New York is possibly the most important cultural center in the world, not in vain it has more than 2,000 artistic organizations from very different disciplines and more than 500 art galleries, not counting the almost 100 museums that you can visit in the city .

30. As the last of these curiosities of New York , we will mention one of the absurd American laws that were established at a given time and have never been repealed and that is still valid in the city: if you travel in an elevator, you should not talk to anyone, you should stay with your hands together and look in the direction of the door.

Other Curiosities of Cities

And if you love to travel and know the secrets of the different countries and their urban centers, you can discover with us curiosities of Europe Y curiosities of America , from the most surprising data from other wonderful cities that you will surely be interested in such as:

Images: Americasroof , Jim.henderson , Morn , diluvi.com Anna i Adria , Ali Zifan , Michael Vadon ,